OMGoodness. I’ve publicized more than 50 events. They have been press conferences, live shows, trade shows from crafts to gems to ‘world music’ and culture. There have even been two sports shows that I personally founded, sold space, sponsorships and ads for plus publicized. I know. You can’t imagine the sports part, right? I did it all as a one woman team with part time admin help and it was hockey and cycling.
But this. This one is something else. And as the event’s public opening dance and music night reminds us, it can take more than 2 lists to tango in publicity. It takes that special match of story and human emotion to connect what you offer to the needs of your partners in publicity. Not just the facts.
¡Festival Judío! A Celebration of Latin American Jewish Culture – indeed IS something else. The festival itself was gotten together quickly by a small and plucky committee. It has many moving parts to promote like a mix of culture, art, books, music, dance and lectures. And for me, I am really up close with a whole new community for us all to learn about. One that is adding greatly to our larger community in British Columbia and one that is growing – as both the general Latino community and its Jewish Latin American members.
All this makes it the only kind in the world, And – the biggest little Latin Festival that no one has heard of – yet. For me as publicist, the learning curve has been steep and this is why:
The skills us ‘classic’ PR types and writers bring never go out of fashion or effectiveness. The principles stay the same. BUT we have to factor in the speed, digital state and noise of the spheres we now work in.
Just like a newbie-would be photography-marvel-in-the-making with a digital camera is smart to learn old school composition and manual things like fStops for control and depth of knowledge, so are we ‘vets’ smart to adapt to the digital realm. In fact, we must.
Steep learning curve. So much joy. Long days and late nights as all the detail required to ‘just post and click’ is deceptively labour intensive. Plus it can fry our eyeballs and rewire our creative brains. We’ll pick that up another time, also.
So, last time we left it at my go to plan being 2 lists:
- Prospective market, suppliers, sponsors, media.
- A list of all you offer – people, features, benefits, products and their stories.
The lists reduce the information overload. Arrange it in what you got and what you can trade that the folks and the brands in the first list need or want to see to help elevate their profile or to sell their goods and services.
Match these according to the markets they serve and other factors like timing and platform etc.
Go on, get started. When you are ready that is. It starts out simple. Keep at it even though you might find yourself segmenting.
Ah.. a moment.
Some people call these lists databases. When they get into the weeds of detail and differentiation from one group in the same list and another, they might call this market segmentation.
The personality that some of these now fragments take on might be called: niche appeal.
In the end it all means: look at the lists, find the special points of each one – desires, patterns and history. Those details are the story. Marry the bare bones or the frame of their story and flesh it out with emotion. Voila – you have your start to a good match!
How you handle it from there is the stuff of building a story. I have posted on that just previously but will revisit the process of selecting the subjects and their details more closely next time. The difference between the A-B-C stories for business series and the stories I myself am working on right now is that the ABC was about YOUR OWN stories for your own reasons. In this I am representing a client and their goals.
Why I said I lost the thread for awhile in the word forest of press releases – is because I got mired in the facts. While still processing all the moving parts, and exerting myself on that steep learning curve – I forgot that to be sure to help my prospective partners in promotion – the media – to reach their audience well. To supply quality and relevant material packaged and therefore helping them bring my client to their audience’s attention, I needed to present stories in capsules that also carried human emotion.
Facts alone do not a story make, but a story can easily relay lots of facts and make an event, a person or an action memorable. In my case, I had to let go of the focus on facts and find stories to suit the platforms and needs of those I hope would help me they served their audience’s expectation of hope, desire to learn and more.
Okie Dokie. Let me know in the comments or via the contact form what you think. Was it clear to you? Sometimes it’s not as clear as we think while we create and then correct. Let me know.
Next time back to the basics of story building.
